Sinking In
by ThatHydrokinetic
Summary: Artemis is working a job when a certain redhead interrupts her plans. Thief AU. Drabble collection with sporadic updates. Spitfire.
1. Chapter 1

**This is a weird AU thing I wrote. It's a kind of thief-AU thing, with Artemis working for the League of Shadows and KF & Robin working for the Justice League, which doesn't so much fight crime as thwart other crime organizations. No powers.**

 **Characters aren't mine. Constructive criticism welcomed.**

 **Song is "Something's Gotta Give" by OneRepublic.**

OOOoooOOO

" _And then you showed yourself, all the colors that you fear._ "

OOOoooOOO

The relic sits on a pedestal in the center of the alcove, lit only by the spotlights scattered around the room. She knows where each of the five cameras are, even the 'hidden' one. Each camera scanned in a seemingly random pattern, giving the illusion that they could turn on you at any moment—while in reality it was just complicated—and she's been sitting there for so long she has it memorized. Downstairs, three doors to the left of the stairwell, is a security room, where two IT's and three security guards sat monitoring the feed for these two floors. All five are currently unconscious, and will be, for the next twenty-four minutes. Maybe a little longer for the lightweight IT's, but the guards are a bigger concern, and they are who she measured the dosage for.

The camera currently trained on the relic has been there for seventeen seconds, meaning it'll stay there for another nine, but only eight before the other camera comes to overlap. She begins to slink her way across the room, keeping in the blind spots to avoid being seen. It isn't any real harm if she is; she's already left the Shadow's tag in the security room, and in her black uniform and mask there is no way they would be able to discern her identity anyway. She avoids being seen mostly for fun; it is a bit of a game to see if she can make through the room without being spotted. If she does, it also means she won't have to doctor the tapes later, a task she has no skill in but is still obligated to do. Life would be no fun if they could put a face to the mysterious League of Shadows.

She pulls a compact crossbow from the holster on her leg and fires a bolt in the hinge of a camera just before it is set to turn towards the relic, preventing its movement. A moment later, she hears the tell-tale whirring meaning the other camera has turned.

She has twenty-two seconds to disable the security system and get the relic.

In reality, this is the easy part. While the focal point of this room, the relic is far from the most valuable piece at the museum. When the heist had initially been assigned to her, she found that no matter how she thought about it, she couldn't fathom what the Shadows wanted it for. She then learned that you don't question orders.

She slides a thin vial from the many on her belt and dribbles it along three sides of the bullet-proof casing, the corrosive agent working its way through the glass instantly. While that dissolves, she attaches a metal disc to the side of the pedestal, which she knows will blink red twice before glowing a steady green, signaling any security is disabled. She doesn't notice, however, when the lights flicker once and stay red; her attention is more on the sudden whistling that picks up down the hall.

Instantly, she drops to the floor, unfolding her collapsible longbow and nocking an arrow all in the same movement. She crouches in the shadows, out of sight of both entrances to the alcove. She grows steadily tenser as the whistling grows steadily louder, and try as she might to relax herself, she's never had as much luck at it as her sister.

The whirring of a camera behind her startles her so much it almost causes her to fall over. She draws and fires an arrow on instinct before really thinking about it, the light-weight carbon arrow slicing through the metal arm holding it up, sending the camera crashing to the ground.

The sound is shocking through the quiet of the museum, and the silence that falls afterward is worse than the whistling. All movement has stopped; it seems as if even the air has frozen. She glances quickly around the room, and when she turns her gaze back to the entrance, her gray eyes meet bright green and it takes her a second too long to realize what she sees.

She swings her bow around, fully intent on slamming it into the side of his head when suddenly he's not there anymore. He's halfway across the room, leaning casually against the case containing a three-hundred year old piece of pottery. Dressed head-to-toe in black body armor, not entirely unlike hers, a mask covers the top half of his face, leaving just his eyes and mouth uncovered. What she assumes to be infrared goggles sit atop his head next to a shock of bright red hair, so distinctive she's amazed it isn't covered.

He looks over at the mess of shattered metal and glass that used to be a camera and says, "What'd that camera ever do to you?"

The question is so casual, as if the two of them aren't thieves that have broken into a museum at 2:43 in the morning that it takes her a beat to comprehend it. Instead of deigning such a stupid question an answer, she snaps "Who are you?"

"I could ask you the same question," he says. He glances casually around the room, and his entire posture screams that he's not the least bit afraid. She feels the need to pounce at him, bring him to his knees and show him why he should be, but she can't figure out how to move. Finally, she begins to stand, mostly because the half-crouch position she's in is very uncomfortable, when his gaze locks back on hers and she's frozen again. "I'm called the Flash."

She can't help but snort, even though this is far from the time. "What?" he asks, and although his tone suggests it, his eyes say he's hardly offended. Chances are he's heard it before.

"And who calls you that?" she asks, because she can't resist the taunt, but he shakes his head.

"You first. You still haven't told me your name."

She isn't sure when this turned from a standoff to a social gathering, and she's not entirely comfortable with the switch. She wants to attack, to knock him out and grab the relic and get out of there—she's been in this museum far too long and it seems as if every second that passes is a second closer to when she's caught. This whole situation is entirely too casual, too open, and it makes her feel vulnerable so something needs to be done. Problem is, he's the fastest person she's ever seen and some part of her can't shake the thought he'd snatch anything she shot at him right out of the air.

So she answers him instead. "Huntress," she responds, and the panic in his eyes is enough to make everything worth it. When she joined the Shadows, she took her mom's mantle because the Huntress is already feared and there's power in a name. She'd intended to give it up when her mother got out of prison, but when she returned home in a wheelchair the title got formally passed to Artemis.

But the panic only lasts a second before it's replaced with amusement, and any satisfaction she felt before vanishes. "Oh, so something happened to her. We were wondering. There's been a distinct drop in assassinations bearing her MO. You obviously aren't up to her level yet."

She stiffens, her hand tightening on her bow, and she wonders again _why she hasn't just shot this guy yet,_ because the fact that she refuses to take assassination jobs is a sore spot for both her and the Shadows. She doesn't want to take lives, and her firm stance on this almost got her kicked out. Truth be told, she's not quite sure why she wasn't.

But then her brain latches onto that one word because _what if it's the 'we' she thinks it is._ What if he's a part of that new organization that's been repeatedly frustrating the Shadows by thwarting their jobs as often as they can? From interrupting assassinations, to bugging intelligence grabs, even stealing targets before the operative can even arrive on scene. Her superiors have been trying for months now to track them, at least figure out how they're getting their info, but to no avail.

It would do wonders for her standings with the Shadows if she could get info, maybe even catch them…

That doesn't mean she's about to let that jibe about her abilities go, however.

"Yeah, well," she says, leaning against the well behind her, trying to mimic his casual attitude, "at least I'm not called _the Flash._ "

He flushes red and looks ready to retort when an eerie cackle echoes through the quiet, sending shivers down Artemis's spine. She nocks an arrow and draws it back, keeping it at the ready as she searches for the source of the sound.

"What do you think that was?" she asks, and looks over at him, expecting to see him tense and ready to fight, as she is; instead, he seems even more at ease than before. He grins broadly, a smug look clearly saying he knows something she doesn't. It infuriates her.

"That, Huntress, is my cue." Another cackle, this time much closer, from the hall to the right of the entrance. 'Flash' begins meandering towards it, and Artemis has the urge to shoot him, if nothing else than to get rid of his arrogant expression. He winks at her. "I'll be seeing you."

And with that, every light in the museum flickers out.


	2. Chapter 2

**_I_ don't even know what this au is. But I'm glad you guys like it!**

 **Updates will happen a little more often, now that I know people are interested in it. I'm estimating that this will end up about five chapters long. Hope you enjoy!**

OOOoooOOO

" _We ain't got a shot to lose, put it on, fade it out, tell you that you weren't enough."_

OOOoooOOO

Gotham Academy has as much security as any place she's ever broken into before.

She's just there to snag profiles for a few students. Sneak into the registrar's office and rifle through some filing cabinets for info the school doesn't store online. Two are targets the League has in mind and one is an undercover that needs to disappear. The same kind of low-importance and unchallenging tasks she's been receiving for the last two months, ever since that botched museum job.

"This is ridiculous," she mutters into her comm as she digs through filing cabinets, of which a school with this much funding has decidedly too many.

" _You're the one who screwed up that job_ ," Cameron responds, and she can hear him chewing loudly in her ear. It disgusts her, but also reminds her stomach that she hasn't eaten in a day or two, so it choses then to growl.

"Shut up," she says both to him and her stomach. "And quit eating so loudly. It's distracting and gross."

" _You mean like this_?" he asks, and chews louder. She grits her teeth.

"Why'd they even put you on relay? You're useless."

" _Yeah, but your father is out and no one else wanted to deal with you_."

"And they think I want to deal with you?" A sound in the hallway reminds her why she's here. "Now, seriously, be quiet. I've got to find these files."

It takes her five minutes to figure out the arbitrary filing system well enough to have an actual chance of locating the files. Two minutes later, she's holding all three in her hand.

"I've got them," she says over the line, and is met with silence. She frowns. "Are you there?"

A few seconds later she hears static, and then he responds, " _Huntress_?"

She knows that tone, and it worries her. "What happened?"

 _"_ _You need to get out of there."_

"Why?" she asks, indignant. But she is already moving, slinking her way out of the office and down the hallway, taking care to keep out of the view of the cameras lining the ceiling. "You know I can take anyone that—"

" _There have been reports—"_ She hears the wheels of his chair scrape against the ground as he shoves himself to the other side of the room. " _Someone's hacked our system_."

"How'd they get in?" she asks.

" _Not sure. Give me a second_."

The comm switches off again and she stays hidden in the shadows near the doorway, trying her best to stay calm and still.

" _They piggy-backed on the comm line_."

"How is that even possible?"

" _It's some damn good hacking, that's for sure_."

"Can't you just cut the lines?"

" _It's too late. He's already in_."

She continues to sneak along the hallway, keeping to the very occasional blind spot. "Where is he? Do you have a location?"

" _We can't get anything narrower than that school you're at_."

She freezes. "Wait, he's here?"

" _Yeah, that's what I just said_."

Artemis is already moving. "You've got to have a pretty good processor to hack us, right? Fast internet? That's not something you can do on a laptop."

" _Yeah, they'd probably need to be hard-wired. Why?_ "

She remembers seeing a computer lab on her way to the registrar's. Backtracking her steps, she winds her way carefully through the hallways until she stands outside of the locked door. The lights are off, and all she can see through the small window is the pale light cast by the few monitors left on.

" _Why are you still there? I told you to get out_."

She frowns at the door. "I thought I had an idea."

He snorts. " _Wouldn't that be a novelty_."

"I'm serious." She's wondering who thought it was a good idea to have him for backup. "I'm at the computer lab, but there's no one inside. I thought for sure…."

" _There'd be too many firewalls to get though in a computer lab. Have you seen how heavily they block out the porn sites?_ "

"So what about an administrator's computer?"

Two hundred and thirty four seconds later, she's standing outside of the principal's office, peering through the crack between the door and the wall where, sure enough, her hacker is sitting. She can't see him very well—the computer monitor is too large for her to see his face—but there's no chance he's the mother of the two daughters she sees pictures of littering the desk.

She dips to her knees, keeping her back the wood and slipping a tranquilizer arrow from her quiver. Drawing a deep breath, she springs up and draws her bow, aiming the tip towards her target. And once she's standing, she finds herself unconsciously correcting her aim before her brain even really registers what she's looking at, because whomever she's aiming for is significantly shorter than she anticipated.

"Whoa, whoa," he says, eyes wide as he stares at her arrow, and though he is no longer looking at the screen, the typing doesn't break rhythm. She stays silent because, honestly, she's enjoying his growing discomfort. But she's also so thrown off by his age that she doesn't know if she'll be able to shoot him at all, even if it's just a tranquilizer. Because in front of her sits a kid who can't be older than twelve, dressed in the school uniform she's amazed anyone can keep so neat. His pale face is highlighted by the damp light from the computer screen, words reflected in his bright blue irises. And she aims an arrow at his forehead as he hacks into the database housing the secrets fabricating her entire life.

A part of her revels in his fear. In the slight unconscious trembling of his body and how his fingers begin to stumble across the keys.

"You're hacking the Shadows. I want you to stop."

His eyes widen fractionally. "I don't know what you're talking about." His voice is strong and confident and for a second, she finds herself believing him.

" _Huntress, what the—what do you think you're doing? If you found him, shoot him!"_

 _He's just a kid,_ she thinks. And he is. His face is round with youth and his cerulean eyes haven't lost any of their light. She is overwhelmed by jealousy of his innocence, the kind of innocence she's never had the luxury of knowing.

"Yes you do." She rests the point of her arrow against his glabella, because even though it's a completely impractical position for actually shooting him, he can feel the sharpness of the tip and the gravity of the situation. She is very well versed in scare tactics. "Eighty three seconds ago I received word that someone hacked into our server through the comm link. I want to know what you accessed and who you work for."

"I thought you wanted me to stop?" he bites, and she presses her arrowhead carefully into his soft skin so that a bead of red wells up around it.

"And I also want you to stop."

His fingers dart even faster across the keyboard.

"I said, I want you to stop."

" _Why isn't he dead yet?"_

She drags the tip across his forehead so that it barely scrapes his skin as she moves to stand behind him. Pressing the hard metal of the arrowhead into the fleshy part of his neck, she leans close to his ear and feels him shiver against her. "I said," she whispers, "that you need to stop."

Three more lines of code enter the command bar on the screen before he raises both his hands in surrender. She straightens, keeping her arrow at the ready. "Back away from the computer."

He slides the chair from the desk until it thuds against the oak cabinets behind him. "Stand," she commands, and directs with her arrow where she wants him, back against the wall.

"Do you believe I can and will shoot you at a moment's notice?" she asks, and at his nod, she relaxes her bow, her muscles groaning as they unclench. She slips the arrow back into her quiver before unwrapping a cord from her waist. "Hands."

With both his hands secured behind his back, she sets her bow on the desk where he can see it and slips into the chair, intent on figuring out what he was doing. But after three minutes and eleven seconds of frantic searching all she can see is a loading bar two minutes from completion. She once again laments her lack of talent with computers.

She slips her stiletto dagger from the sheath on her thigh and presses it lightly against his jugular, barely suppressing a flinch at the very real terror in his eyes. He stares at her defiantly, though, scared as he is, and she knows without question that this kid is far braver and has seen far more than any his age ought to have. And she finds herself questioning her earlier belief in his undiluted innocence.

So she takes a step back and sheathes the dagger and reaches to her ear, slipping her comm off and into her pocket, and then holds up her hands so his wary eyes can be sure she's clean. "I don't want to hurt you."

"Yeah, well, it sure looked like you did," he says, voice acid.

"I don't," she repeats, hers soft. "But you need to tell me what you looked into."

"Why would I do that? Trust me when I say that there's nothing you can do to me that will make me talk."

"Fine! Fine. At least—at least tell me what this loading bar is." She looks him dead in the eye. "Please."

He breathes. Once. Twice. "That loading bar is prepping to send everything the Shadows have to a remote server set up thirty miles off the coast of the eastern United States. From there it will be pinged off several different locations and accounts until it winds up with an organization that will very publicly post all of the information online."

"Everything?"

"Everything."

"Do you understand what that will do?" she breathes. "Every person whose identity you leak will become a target. Even the janitors will be perceived as a threat and will be in danger. And you're okay with that? With ruining all those lives? We aren't all assassins."

"I don't need a lesson in morality from you!" he yells, and the hate in his voice, not directed at her but at _himself_ , gives her pause.

"Then why?"

"You aren't the only one in too deep." Another breath. Three. Four.

There is a standoff in their breaths, as each tries to wait the other out. But Artemis is on a clock that she cannot rid herself of without his help, and every second is another she does not have.

"Help me."

"Why should I?"

"Because you don't want to do it."

Five. Six. "You swear you won't pull that dagger out again?" She bites her lip.

 _Thirty-two seconds._

"Yes."

He stalks right over to the keyboard and begins typing even quicker than he had before she tied him up. And it takes her a second too long to remember that she hadn't untied him.

She bends down and picks up the thick cord she bound his wrists with, now completely unraveled and limp in her hands.

"You could have given me some more time," he says, frantically typing, and she wraps the cord back around her waist.

"You could have decided not to hack our server."

"We don't all get a choice." His bright blue eyes never leave the screen. "Besides, we've all got to stay traught, right?"

"What?" she asks, because while she may not be the most educated individual, she's fairly certain 'traught' is not a word.

"Sorry," he says distractedly, and curses under his breath as he rapidly hits the backspace key. "Traught, derived from 'distraught'. Remove the 'dis' and you're left with 'traught', its opposite." He recites this speech mechanically, as if he has done it hundreds of times before, and it's such an ordinary thing for someone to play with in such an unordinary circumstance. And she, once again, finds herself struck by the understanding that he is a _child_.

After a few seconds of watching meaningless strands of code fly across the computer screen, she pulls the comm out of her pocket and inserts it back into her ear, hearing just the tail end of what she's sure was a very long and extensive lecture.

" _—_ _and after all that, you have the nerve to pull the comm out of your ear. Your father is going to kill the both of us, you know that—"_

"Calm down," she snaps, because listening to Cameron worry over his own skin is not helping her own nerves. "Cameron, he's just a kid."

" _What? You're talking about a hostage, right?_ "

"No. The hacker. He's only twelve."

"Hey," the kid interjects, and her eyes jerk to him as she realizes she let her attention wander and he had not. "I'm fourteen."

She rolls her eyes. "Fourteen."

" _That's not possible_."

"Is your friend over the comm doubting my abilities? Because I can always just let info about him leak through."

She glares at him and he cackles. "I'm kidding, kidding."

"How much longer is that going to take?"

 _"_ _Wait, what is he doing?"_

He cuts her a look. "I was in this room for six minutes before you walked in. Now I have to undo all of my programming, cover the hole I punched through your firewall, and slip a virus into whatever I send my employer so that they won't put a bounty on my head for bailing on the job. And, for the record, I'm still not sure why I'm doing this."

"Neither am I."

A shrill ringtone cuts through the silence the room, a sound so unexpected it sends them both jumping. The inside pocket of his blazer vibrates softly in time with the song.

"Crap," he says. "That's either good or very bad."

"Can't you answer it?" she demands, the song beginning to grate on her nerves.

"I'm a little busy at the moment."

The phone rings out twice more before shutting back off.

"So, employer, huh?"

He lurches a bit in his chair, as if surprised she caught that bit of his spiel. "Yeah," he confirms uncomfortably, his tone abrasive. "Employer."

She's dealt with mercenaries before—people who sell their skills to the highest bidder, and most of the time they make her sick. That people could sell their loyalties so easily. And she begins to wonder what made this kid, one with dark hair and bright eyes filled with mirth and an inky past she does not believe she can comprehend, choose a path that not even she would go down.

"There," he says, shutting off the computer and pulling two flash drives out of the USB ports. "I'm done."

He tucks one into a pocket of his blazer and sets the other on the desk, next to her bow.

"Well, this was fun," he says, and she feels his sarcastic shell rising up around him, one not unlike her own. "But I'm late for class."

"Wait," she says, grabbing for his wrist. Her fingers barely graze his skin when he jerks his arm back violently, hand slipping into his sleeve. Swallowing a reaction, she holds up the flash drive that he left on the desk. "What's this?"

"Oh. That," he says, pointing, "is everything the Shadows had on their online database. I figure, since you're stealing intelligence for them—" he nods at the three manila folders tucked into her quiver, which she forgot about, "you deserve a little intelligence for yourself."

And he slips from the room as the next period bell rings, leaving Artemis behind.


	3. Chapter 3

**I am not very good at updating. I'm sorry.**

OOOoooOOO

 _"Oh, we all run for something. For God, or for fate, for love, for hate, for gold, for rust, for diamonds or dust."_

OOOoooOOO

The flash drive still sits in her bedroom.

She hasn't opened it. She can't bring herself to, not yet. She's worked with the Shadows her entire life, born and raised and trained under their roof. The Shadows are all she knows, and she's not sure if she can handle seeing that fall apart.

So she doesn't. She leaves it wrapped in fabric and stuffed inside her pillow, always close but always hidden.

But she finds herself thinking on it more often than is safe, because wondering about something irrelevant as you fight for your life is often distracting. And as her adversary literally picks her up and throws her across the room because she isn't paying attention, she finds herself cursing her decision to leave things with the drive be.

She scrambles to her feet and draws another arrow, aiming it at the meta in front of her. Just by looking at him, you wouldn't be able to tell there was anything wrong; he looks just like a normal human, albeit a little more beefed up. But he is strong enough to lift her with little to no effort on his part, a feat that rests firmly in the supernatural.

"Superboy, you got her?" a voice calls from the other end of the room where they fight, and she switches her aim temporarily towards it, twisting back once she realizes she can't see him anyway.

'Superboy' growls, a deep sound from the back of his throat, reminding her of the thunder that warns of lightening nearby. "Yeah, I've got her."

She growls back, unwilling to be intimidated. "I'm the one with the arrow to your chest." He chuckles a little, mirthless, and she grows frustrated that he finds that funny. "You won't be laughing when this piece of carbon is lodged in your throat."

"You can't hurt me."

"Are you willing test that theory?"

He growls again and she smirks, because fighting angry is fighting sloppy.

"SB, calm down," his friend says as he walks toward them, and she draws and releases the instant he's in range, aiming for the right side of his chest. He ducks out of the way and she draws another, holding it steady. "Whoa, that was a close one. You should calm down too, Huntress."

She meets his eyes and is surprised to realize that she recognizes him. That he is the same prick who messed up her museum gig all those months before. She pulls back a little further on her arrow.

"Flash."

"Kid Flash, actually," he says, green eyes bright. "I might have lied back at the museum. Flash is my mentor."

"It's still a stupid name."

He shrugs, but she can see that he stiffened at the taunt. "Maybe."

She relaxes her grip on her bow, but keeps the arrow nocked. "I made fun of you for 'Flash'. 'Kid Flash' is infinitely worse."

"Ha ha. Very funny."

"I thought so."

He slits his eyes before turning and looking at the brute beside him. After what seems to her a silent conversation, Superboy grunts, the extent of his vocabulary, and turns a suspicious eye on Artemis.

"You sure you can handle her?" he asks aloud, and Kid Flash nods, eyes bright.

"I've handled her before. I promise you I've got it."

She bristles at the term 'handled' for more than a few reasons as Superboy turns and tromps up the stairwell, onto the ground floor of the building. She follows the sound of his footsteps until she can't anymore, and she assumes he must have gone up another floor.

Kid Flash and she stand for a moment, deadlocked—neither of them willing to make a move before the other. Artemis is struck by the same trapped feeling she felt months ago in the museum, and it makes her antsy.

He seems to be having just as much trouble standing still, although she suspects that's just in his nature. He sifts from foot to foot and fiddles with his hands.

"I see you brought a team with you this time," she says, attempting to elicit a response. "It seems they don't trust you on your own anymore."

"Takes one to know one. You've brought company too," he says confidently, but she can see in his posture that he's uncomfortable. "How are things going with the Shadows after I messed up that gig of yours? I hear they're not the most forgiving."

"They came around."

"Even after your database scare? I heard it was your link they hacked through. That must've been embarrassing."

Her mind races. The only way he can know that is if someone told him, and there are only a handful that could have. The high-ranking officers that decided her punishment. Cameron. The tech people who worked on combating it. Her. Her father. The hacker.

 _The hacker._

What if his organization had hired him? What if they were who he worked for? Her mind began rapidly generating possibilities, ranging from getting the hacker to betray them to just torturing him for information.

"Nothing was leaked, and I killed the hacker before he could squeal. So, not really."

Her sentence is strategic, and she makes sure not to miss any of the emotions that flicker across his face next. She didn't kill the hacker kid, but she told her superiors that she had. It sounded better than the fact that she let him go on some crazy lapse in judgement or increase in faith, and it has since done wonders for her standing. She doesn't think he would mind; if she hadn't proclaimed him already dead, assassin after assassin would be sent after him to make sure he can't say anything. He would become a target. She did both of them a favor.

So when she sees confusion and disbelief and smugness race through his expression, she _knows._

"The Shadows must have really covered that up, then. I think a dead body in the principal's chair would have raised some questions."

She wonders if he understands just how much he's giving away. If he understands that she now knows that he and the hacker have a kind of understanding, maybe even a personal relationship. Because you don't go into that much detail on a report. You only go into that much detail when you're telling a story.

"We've had practice."

She also wonders if he notices she's doing this on purpose. Dropping ample lines of how trained she is in killing. That she's paying attention to how uncomfortable he gets every time she does, noticing even the slight increase in his frantic search for a way out.

She can see that he knows he probably can't get to an exit before she can shoot it closed, either with explosives or some other trick arrow she has tucked into her quiver. He might be able to outrun it, but he doesn't want to take his chances in the enclosed space. Frankly, it's a smart decision. But she also can't move, for similar reasons; she sees now that he has some sort of molecular modification, something that changed him to where he can run faster than even one of her arrows. And if he can outrun her arrow, he can outrun her. The both of them are locked in this basement until one of the other players on the board makes a move.

And it isn't long until one does.

It starts as a shift in the air, a disturbing of the dust. Something rattles the ceiling, causing the both of them to glace upward nervously. And then a faint cackle, something reminiscent of what she heard two months ago in the museum. It is quiet and eerie, and seems to be coming from the floor above. The dust shivers again in the air, and Artemis feels it invading her lungs. She meets Kid Flash's eyes across the room, and she isn't sure whether or not she's imagining his disquiet.

The cackling grows, and she sees understanding fill the green of his irises. A faint smirk graces his lips, but falls immediately as the sound of marbles rolling along the wooden ceiling above preludes two small beeps, just barely audible through the floorboards.

"Huntress, get down!" he screams, his voice hoarse, before he tackles her to the floor, the weight of his body crashing into hers forcing them both tumbling to the ground seconds before the taste of gunpowder slinks through the air.

The explosions hit seconds after; small detonations, probably caused by sparks lighting on the gunpowder, blowing out the ceiling above them. Kid Flash has covered her with his body, so she can't see anything, and the lack of sight is disorienting. All she knows is bombs are going off, she is pressed uncomfortably by the ground, her bow, and her adversary, and the latter seems to have chosen to save her.

All sound has been sucked out of the air, along with all of the oxygen. Artemis is left hacking as she sits up, shoving Kid Flash off of her stomach. He groans at the movement, and she worries for only a second before confirming that he is likely unharmed.

Large chunks of wood are scattered across the ground, but the majority of it is splinters and dust. Grabbing her bow, she pushes herself off the ground and attempts to brush some of the larger shrapnel off her stomach and out of her hair. She coughs again, and shields her eyes as she peers up at the hole in the ceiling, the light shining down meaning the sun has begun to rise.

Someone lands on the ground beside her, a black amorphous object dropping from above and just barely brushing against her side. She shivers and immediately attempts to loose an arrow, stopping only when she sees her string has snapped. She realizes that when she feel to the ground, and on top of her bow, she must have bent it too far back that the already worn string broke from the strain. She growls at it for only a second before tossing it aside and slipping a knife from the sheath on her leg.

The figure rises, enveloped in a black cape, only distinguishing factor the bright lenses on the mask over their eyes; the rest is shrouded in darkness, her eyes unable to focus because of the light hitting their back. She raises her arm, preparing to throw the knife, even though it isn't properly weighted.

But a laugh cuts through the silence, the only sound since the blast, and she half-turns to the side so she can both watch the figure and Kid Flash, who is rolling in the dust, black costume further coated in the fine powder, laughter tearing its way through his throat.

"Nice one," he manages to choke out, taking a deep breath in the unsatisfying air just to cough it back out again. "You scared the shit out of her."

The figure laughs, and it's just as eerie as it was when she couldn't see him. But now there's a note of familiarity to it, and she shifts just enough to the side so she can see more of him. It isn't long before she can see the lighter tones in his black hair, and just the recognition of that one human trait opens the dam to many more. His skin is pale, and he is short, shorter than she is. And as these fact align in her mind, she finds she can picture the blue behind those white lenses as clear as if they were exposed.

Her voice is cutting when she says, "You're the hacker."

And his smile is just as sharp as he says, "Hello, Artemis."


End file.
